My Cultural Diet
Quick reviews of movies, TV shows, books, restaurants, etc., as I enjoy them. My own private Goodreads, Letterboxd, and Yelp all rolled into one (more info here). Ratings are 100% subjective, non-scientific, and subject to change. May contain affiliate links.
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🦸
The Sandman: Endless Nights by Neil Gaiman
A collection of stories about each of Dream’s Endless siblings (e.g., Death, Desire). Each story is illustrated by a different artist, so they’re all wildly different in tone and atmosphere. Apparently the first comic to ever land on the New York Times Bestseller List. I thought it was OK. | ||
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I was really looking forward to Ron Marz and Ron Lim, who helmed the Silver Surfer comic when I first discovered it back in high school, return to the Sentinel of the Spaceways. Alas, this was a disappointment. Lim’s artwork had lost its mid-’90s edge and the storyline — the Surfer teams up with Thanos to retrieve one of the Infinity Gems — felt like a retread. It might’ve helped if the series had been longer than five issues, as there were some interesting threads in there, but overall, not my favorite Surfer title. | ||
Decorum is more an exercise in world-building than a “normal” comic. The hardcover is filled with notes on far-future worlds, societies, and religions, all brought to life via Mike Huddleston’s incredible artwork and Sasha E Head’s intricate graphic design. The storyline — a group of assassins are hired to find a cosmic relic for an AI religion — is promising, but unfortunately, underwhelming. Given all of the world-building, I kept hoping for something more fantastical. | ||
Works as both a love letter and deconstruction of fantasy role-playing games like Dungeons & Dragons as well as the fantasy genre as a whole, but only by someone who understands both really well. | ||
I’m a sucker for stories that re-envision the past with magic, which is precisely what Arrowsmith does: it’s World War I with magic, and all that entails (wizards, dragons, trolls). The storyline is fairly straightforward coming-of-age, horrors-of-war stuff, but the artwork is gorgeous and the world building is cool. Apparently, a second volume’s in the works, and I’ll probably check it out at some point. | ||
The survival-at-all-costs story never really grabbed me, and Arielle Jovellanos’ artwork felt underwhelming compared to her other work. | ||
I really liked the first volume of Department of Truth (read my review), and Volume Two keeps with the trippy conspiracy theories, pseudo-histories, and crypto-zoology, as well as some surprisingly emotional moments. Martin Simmonds’ artwork continues to astound. | ||
I liked this volume OK, but more importantly, it got me hyped for volume two. |